Catching Smoke
by stardust-bones
Summary: An introspective look into Train's life with Chronos. "The numbers remain forever. He knows this all too well, the way he carries his numeral like a weight on his chest." Lib Tyrant-centered. One-shot.


**AN: Written on a procrastinated whim. First attempt at Black Cat, set during the first episode, I suppose, if you want to give it a time frame. Disclaimers, I own nothing. Enjoy the drabble-tasticness!**

Numbers don't lie. They never have and they never will. They are forever set in stone, calculations with no end, decimals and figures and equations that morph and twist to fit their own deadly desires. They rest upon the pages, dark lines in contrast to a world that should be light but is instead smeared by the pangs of what should have been erased.

The numbers remain forever. He knows this all too well, the way he carries his numeral like a weight on his chest.

No matter how much it pains him, he wakes every day to find it there, a beacon whose light seems to pierce all. It marks him as forever an outcast, doomed to walk the city with heavy footsteps, followed by the background noises of muffled congratulations and the pitfalls of new missions and whispers that drift and curl in the air like bits of ash caught in the grasp of smoke.

Or is it the other way around? For the ash is what binds him, really. The Chronos hold him in their grip, holding him and petting him as though they have him permanently.

But they don't.

He is the drifting smoke that everyone has tried to catch and everyone has failed at catching. He is the smoke that fills the crevices and cracks, whose imprint manages to touch everything. He is what the children that dance around the fire avoid. He suffocates and smothers; he ends life and brings death with gunshots fueled by fire and ash.

Fire. Ash and smoke is born from the flames of hatred, from the fuel of pain and sadness and greed that covers the world. Such an irony, that the flames of rage are born from the tears of misery, that an element could be spawned by the very thing that destroys it.

Destruction is all around him, whether it lays in the forms of his never-moving parents or in the eyes of Lib Tyrant. He lives with the fact that he was put upon this earth to rid the world of this destruction. He ends each day knowing that maybe, just maybe, he has done something right.

Because the taking of one life in exchange for the survival of millions is something that is looked upon as a good thing. Murder for sanctuary, war for peace. That is what he keeps locked in his soul. Bloodshed for heartbeat. That is it. Nothing in between but the reloading of a weapon and the faint breather before he stands by the holograms and hears them gloat of what he'll be doing next.

Someday, he will learn to love. The song that dances in the cold night air will teach him that there is more than death, more than lonesome rooftops and black trench coats and bad luck. But for now, his misconception is the reality he lives.

_X_

He runs, and he is the wind for all he cares. He moves through the sea of bodies without a sound. He passes newly pressed suits and ruffled dresses and punch swimming with alcohol. He moves across the scarlet carpet, cuts through the air, dips and swerves and turns with accuracy that none may beat. A marathon in but a minute is all it takes for him to reach the target.

Devoid of life, devoid of hope. The crowd cheers so loudly that it hurts his ears. They hold on to every word the man says. Each utterance of gilded syllables swarms in a deathly drone.

_I_

The good intentions Tyrant held only for the public eye, deepest depths of secrets plunged only when the smiling faces are masked by velvet curtains. Here he stands, smile glued in plastic features, arms spread wide in what looks to be hope but is truly disdain. A gangster made king fits him so well that it is his second skin.

Train raises the muzzle, obligations and goals flashing before him. He breathes in slightly, lungs expanding and heart pounding and vessels filling with the rush of sickly sweet blood. The gun feels so natural under his capable fingers. The trigger moves by the barest brush of pressure.

In the distant, detected by only the ears of the Chronos cat, a faint click. A crackle of flame ignites the once subtle powder, and smoke pours a thin stream. The bullet flies forward to sink into the enemy. Heartnet is an assassin, and this is his cycle of life and death.

_I_

He leans a bit closer and whispers his signature ending.

"I've come to deliver some bad luck."

_Boom_ and another life is gone. Another person is saved.

Another person is taken.

The blood does not simply drip from the wound. It splatters, flying out and landing in a crimson rose on the backdrop of tan jacket. But all life fades, and far too soon the petals droop and the stem withers itself down to the core. The flower is dead and the target is dead and the mission is complete but dead, soon to be stuffed in a drawer full of files.

_I_

He flees the building as fast as he came. He hits the window and prepares to leave, ebony-clad shoes scuffing the ledge. He turns, to check if the subject is really dead. Amber eyes meet sapphire, liquid gold upon liquid gild. The blue is filmed over, the sheer and frozen madness that reared its ugly head only in private now true and bold for the entire world to see.

He stares into the eyes of a killer, peers into the depths of a fading soul.

He stares into the mirror of gaze once so powerful, and though the man cannot stare back, the numbers do.

Numbers never lie. The number of warrants crumpled and reward money lost and the number of life both taken and saved have fluctuated.

One more number glances at him, the faintest of reflections.

His number, the one that binds him and ties him and holds him. The number that brings bad luck and good. The number that sends death's messages. The number that tallies up lives. The number of black cats. The number thirteen.

_XIII_


End file.
